"Indeed! Then I wish I had made the acquaintance of my father's cousins a little earlier in life. Why have I been kept in ignorance of my relatives? Where do they live?"
Mrs. Purling, instead of answering him, took him by the arm abruptly, as if to ask him some searching question; then suddenly checking herself, she said—
"Have you had lunch? It must be ready. Come into the dining-room."
"Will not Miss Driver join us?"
"She will go to the housekeeper's room, where she ought to have been sitting, and not in my boudoir."
"Mother!"
"It's as well to be plain-spoken. Dolly Driver is not of our rank in life. Her parents are miserably poor. Nevertheless,"—as if the crime hardly deserved such liberal pardon,—"I am not indisposed to help them. She is going to a situation."
"Poor girl! Companion or governess? or both?"
"Neither; she will be either housemaid or undernurse."
Harold almost jumped off his chair.